I´ve finally started to rebuild my early 1958 430 MEL engine. Its out of a 58 model Lincoln buildt in October 1957. Since I dont need it quickly done because I only have the engine (I dont have the Lincoln, or any car for this engine), and its the first time I try to rebuild an engine, its probably gonna take a while until its running again. I plan to restore it to stock specs, with 2 exceptions. Firstly I upgraded the stock distributor with a Pertronix transistor, and secondly the stock 4-barrell intake and carb will be replaced by a correct reproduction of the factory 1958 Super Marauder Tri Power system. I´ve already modified the distributor and bought the tri power system, and yes, it was expensive
Here are some pics of it during disassembly.

The early 1958 blocks, like mine, have a slightly lower deck height than the later 1958 to 1960 blocks (10.462" vs 10.482") and thus, the early engines have a higher compression ratio (10.5 : 1 vs 10.0 : 1).

The early 1958 heads are also slightly different than the later 1958 to 1960 heads. The early ones have very large 2.80" x 1.30" intake ports and 2.15" intake valves, the later ones have still large 2.70" x 1.30" intake ports and 2.09" intake valves. But there are no differences on the exhaust side, as the port size stayed at 1,90" x 1,23" and the valve size stayed at 1,78".

I´ll update this post with more photos as the work continues.

Last edited by RocketdyneF1 on Wed 21. Jun 2017, 09:22, edited 2 times in total.

After some delay I´ve finally started to reassemble the engine. The crankshafts main bearings and rod bearings were turned down 0.020" each and new main; rod and cam bearings were installed.

Fortunately the cylinders did not have to be bored over, so i could reuse the original pistons. I am very happy about that, because the only pistons commonly available for this engine are flat tops wich seriously lower the compression ratio, and thats really not what i have in mind. So I balanced all stock rods/pistons. I weighted each piston including rings, piston pin, rod and rod bolts, but without rod bearings. Ford actually balanced this engine pretty well when they buildt it some 60 years ago, because 6 out of 8 rods/pistons weighted exactly 1876 grams, one weighted 1878 and another one 1871 grams. So I polished all 8 stock pistons, brought them all down to 1871 grams, put on a new set of rings and put them back into the block.

Because of a sticking lifter, one of the exhaust valves was burned. So I replaced all 16 valves and valve stem seals. The heads have also been milled down a bit. This did actually not raise the engines compression ratio, since the combustion chambers are in the block, not in the heads. I wanna rebuild it to stock specs, thus I dont want to raise or lower the compression ratio. I even managed to buy a set of original Ford NOS metal head gaskets for it. These are 0.020" thick, as compared to modern replacement gaskets wich are around 0.040" thick.
The burnt exhaust valve:

The NOS head gaskets:

One of the resurfaced cylinder heads including new valves. The intake valves are also NOS Ford, the exhaust valves are new aftermarket ones.

When I bought the engine, the original exhaust manifolds were missing. So I bought these correct reproductions of the original Lincoln overhead log style manifolds. I painted them with ultra heat resistant paint. The outlets have a large diameter of 2.5".

The engine looks really wide with both exhaust manifolds on.

At this point, the engine also got a new set of Autolite APP45 spark plugs.

Unfortunately I cant go on with my rebuild for now because I just wasnt able to find a good camshaft for my engine yet. As my engine is an early one, the correct cam for it is part # EDJ-6250-A, its specs are 276°/276° duration, 54° overlap and 0.441"/0.441" lift. But, as mentioned above, I just cant find such a cam, neither a NOS one, nor a reproduction. All I could get is a reground one, or a reproduction of the later type stock cam part # 5750914, its specs are 270°/270° duration, 49° overlap and 0.408"/0.408" lift. This cam would not only be incorrect for my early engine, because of its weaker specs, it would also cause a power loss, so I dont want it. My post in the wanted section of this forum hasnt helped yet, but maybe someone reading this here could help me finding a correct cam?

Anyway, I made a preview of what the engine will look like when its more complete.
With its green colour, chrome valve covers, aluminum intake and tri power carburetion it looks more like a modified hot rod engine, but its actually a stock 1958 Lincoln engine. The chrome valve covers were only used on Tri Power engines, 4-bbl engines got normal painted valve covers.